Clear Voice Blueprint

Why Do We Love StoryBrand So Much?

It's because we know that story sells. 

The word “story” has become increasingly popular in business speak. It's a buzzword that's being thrown around a lot. But who is doing it well and teaching others to do the same?

In his book Building A StoryBrand, author Donald Miller argues that storytelling techniques can be used to create a clear message you can use in your pitches, on your website and in email copy to cut through the noise. Here's how Miller summarizes it:

"Story is the most powerful tool in the world to captivate the human brain. When you learn to use story in your brand's communication, your customers will finally pay attention to what you're saying."

— Donald Miller, author of "Building a StoryBrand."

From what we can see, humans have been telling each other stories since we first learned to communicate. Storytelling is part of our DNA. Did you know (as Building a StoryBrand lays out), the best stories follow mostly the same format? They have a central character, who is faced with an unfamiliar problem. They need to find a Guide who will lay out a clear plan, call them to action and help them win their story. 

That's the plotline of some of the epic stories that have gripped culture for years. 

The best part is that we can take those principles and apply them to your marketing as well. Wouldn't it be great to have a website that captivates the very people you know you can help? 

What makes StoryBrand different is that it gives you a framework to create content around your customer, the hero of the story that matters. 

Why Story Works So Well In Marketing

The goal in marketing is to create more meaningful and persuasive engagement with your audience through concrete advice, insightful analysis, and an emotionally compelling narrative.

The idea behind how we do story-based marketing is this: Your customers don’t care about you or your business as much as you'd hope they would.

Telling them the story of what goes into it is both ineffective and a waste of their time. For you, your brand story is deeply personal. To someone on the street, though, you're just another name business trying to take their hard-earned money.

Showing up as the trustworthy Guide who has a plan to help them solve problems and win their story? Now that's interesting all of a sudden.

Let's use an example to make it clearer: Product descriptions can focus on features such as "Our product is purple" and this may result in customer confusion. Describing the benefits of a product, such as "This will help you feel strong and confident", make customers more likely to buy your product.

From a consumer perspective, benefits are more important than features. Benefits are what help customers. Merely talking about features is what makes you feel good about yourself.

That's irrelevant to a stranger.